英汉语人称代词预指的允准机制研究

A Study of the Licensing Mechanism of English and Chinese Cataphora

预指是一种重要的句法现象。既往关于预指的研究在预指的存在和允准机制问题上存在分歧。本研究在分析既往研究的基础上明确预指是英汉语共有的句法现象,并在对存在预指现象的句式进行结构分类的基础上,结合句法、语用、语义要素对预指的允准机制进行分析,分析结果显示:英语预指较汉语预指更为普遍。另外,英语预指允准主要受句法制约;汉语预指允准主要受语用制约。

Cataphora is an important syntactic phenomenon. Disputes exist in the former studies concerning the existing and licensing mechanism of cataphora. Basing on the analyses of the former studies, the present study first specifies that cataphora does exist in both Chinese and English and then categorizes different sentence structures where cataphora possibly exists. The study further analyzes the separate licensing mechanisms for cataphora in these structures by adopting syntactic, pragmatic and semantic approaches. Syntactically, cataphora is mainly stipulated by the c-commanding relation and the binding principle. Specifically if an element c-commands the other and the two are co-indexed in the binding domain, cataphora is licensed. Pragmatically, the accessibility and the reference conditions constitute the main licensing mechanism, and specifically, a pronoun with low accessibility at a low reference position can establish cataphora relation with a DP with high accessibility at a high reference position but not vice versa. Semantically, the encyclopedic knowledge will be involved in cataphora. Specifically, in an ostensive-inferential communication, the encyclopedic knowledge can help to identify the cataphora relation. The results of these syntactic, pragmatic as well as semantic analyses indicate that cataphora is more popularly found in English than in Chinese;in addition, the cataphora in English is mainly licensed by syntactic factors while that in Chinese is mainly licensed by pragmatic factors.